ONLINE INSURANCE SERVICES: The term Life Insurance is a commodity product, however, and in other insurance product lines, the web offers insurance product lines, the web offers insurance companies new opportunities for product and service differentiation and price discrimination.
The Insurance Industry forms a major part of the $2.2 trillion financial services sector. It has four major segments: Automobile, Life, Health and Property and casualty. Insurance product can be very complex.
The online insurance industry has been very successful in attracting visitors looking to obtain prices and terms of insurance policies.
The industry has been less successful at getting customers to buy policies online. Although this is changing, particularly in the areas of auto mobile insurance polies , which are less complex.
ONLINE TRAVEL SERVICES Travel and tourism in the United states contribute over $1.1 trillion to the U.S. GDP with online travel services becoming an ever larger part of the picture.
Online travel is one of the most successful B2C e-commerce segments, accounting for more online revenue than any other than online category. The Internet is becoming the most common channel used by consumers to research travel options, seek the best possible prices and book reservations for airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, cruises and other tours.
According to Marketer in 2007, about 42 million U.S. Households booked travel online. A November 2006 survey found that almost 60 percent of those polled in the United states said they used the Internet to plan a vacation. By 2010, Online Travel Booking revenues are expected to grow about $146 billion from 2007 to $ 94 billion.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Hirschman and Holbrook ,(1982) , suggest that “Motivations of Consumers to engage in online shopping include both utilitarian and hedonic dimension. Whereas some Internet shoppers can be described as “problem solvers” others can be termed seeking for ‘fun, fantasy, arousal, sensory stimulation and enjoyment’.”
Babinetal., (1994) suggest that, “The problem solvers merely shop online in order to acquire a specific product or service, in which case shopping is considered to be ‘an errand’ or ‘work’.
Holbrook (1994) says that, “Their main concern is to purchase products in an efficient and timely manner to achieve their goals with a minimum of irritation of irritation. In contrast the second category sees online shopping as ‘enjoyment’ and seeks for the potential entertainment resulting from the fun and play arising from the Internet shopping experience for its own sake apart from any other consequence ”
Mathwicketal., (2002) , “If online shopping meets this ideal by enabling the consumer to accomplish the shopping task he or she has set out to perform , then consumers will judge the Internet shopping performance positively.”
Childers et al.,(2001) found “ ‘enjoyment’ to be a consistent and strong predictor of attitude towards online shopping. If consumers enjoy their online shopping experience, they have a more likely to adopt the Internet as a shopping medium”